How to format your references using the Constraints citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Constraints. For a complete guide how to prepare your manuscript refer to the journal's instructions to authors.

Using reference management software

Typically you don't format your citations and bibliography by hand. The easiest way is to use a reference manager:

Paperpile	The citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNote	Find the style here: output styles overview
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and others	The style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeX	BibTeX syles are usually part of a LaTeX template. Check the instructions to authors if the publisher offers a LaTeX template for this journal.

Journal articles

Those examples are references to articles in scholarly journals and how they are supposed to appear in your bibliography.

Not all journals organize their published articles in volumes and issues, so these fields are optional. Some electronic journals do not provide a page range, but instead list an article identifier. In a case like this it's safe to use the article identifier instead of the page range.

A journal article with 1 author

Gottfried, K. (2000). Inferring the statistical interpretation of quantum mechanics from the classical limit. Nature, 405(6786), 533–536.

A journal article with 2 authors

Sun, Z.-W., & Allis, C. D. (2002). Ubiquitination of histone H2B regulates H3 methylation and gene silencing in yeast. Nature, 418(6893), 104–108.

A journal article with 3 authors

Ryugo, D. K., Kretzmer, E. A., & Niparko, J. K. (2005). Restoration of auditory nerve synapses in cats by cochlear implants. Science (New York, N.Y.), 310(5753), 1490–1492.

A journal article with 8 or more authors

Honma, S., Kawamoto, T., Takagi, Y., Fujimoto, K., Sato, F., Noshiro, M., … Honma, K.-I. (2002). Dec1 and Dec2 are regulators of the mammalian molecular clock. Nature, 419(6909), 841–844.

Books and book chapters

Here are examples of references for authored and edited books as well as book chapters.

An authored book

Marcus, Y. (2012). Supercritical Water. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Dinklage, A., Klinger, T., Marx, G., & Schweikhard, L. (Eds.). (2005). Plasma Physics: Confinement, Transport and Collective Effects (Vol. 670). Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Payne-James, J. J., Payne-James, J. J., & Hinchliffe, J. (2011). Injury Assessment, Documentation, and Interpretation. In M. M. Stark (Ed.), Clinical Forensic Medicine: A Physician’s Guide (pp. 133–167). Totowa, NJ: Humana Press.

Web sites

Sometimes references to web sites should appear directly in the text rather than in the bibliography. Refer to the Instructions to authors for Constraints.

Blog post

Hale, T. (2016, July 6). This Cricket Was Infested By “Mind Controlling” Worms. IFLScience. IFLScience. Retrieved October 30, 2018, from https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/this-bug-was-infested-by-mind-controlling-worms/

Reports

This example shows the general structure used for government reports, technical reports, and scientific reports. If you can't locate the report number then it might be better to cite the report as a book. For reports it is usually not individual people that are credited as authors, but a governmental department or agency like "U. S. Food and Drug Administration" or "National Cancer Institute".

Government report

Government Accountability Office. (1982). NASA Must Reconsider Operations Pricing Policy To Compensate for Cost Growth on the Space Transportation System (No. MASAD-82-15). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Theses and dissertations

Theses including Ph.D. dissertations, Master's theses or Bachelor theses follow the basic format outlined below.

Doctoral dissertation

Ross, T. A. (2008). The surgical technologist learning partnership: A comparison of factors in a preceptor relationship (Doctoral dissertation). University of Phoenix, Phoenix, AZ.

News paper articles

Unlike scholarly journals, news papers do not usually have a volume and issue number. Instead, the full date and page number is required for a correct reference.

New York Times article

Kelly, M. (1993, June 6). Clinton Myth of Nonideological Politics Stumbles. New York Times, p. 126.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in square brackets:

This sentence cites one reference [1].
This sentence cites two references [1, 2].
This sentence cites four references [1–4].

About the journal

Full journal title	Constraints
Abbreviation	Constraints
ISSN (print)	1383-7133
ISSN (online)	1572-9354
Scope	Artificial Intelligence Computational Theory and Mathematics Software Discrete Mathematics and Combinatorics

Research and Writing Guides